history of Iran: 1953 coup

Mohammad Mossadegh (1882-1967) was an Iranian politician and served as the Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953. At the time of his election, Iran’s oil reserves in the Persian gulf had been exploited by the British and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which would eventually become British Petroleum, for decades under the threat of military occupation. Conditions in oil towns such as Bandar Abbas were deplorable. The director of Iran’s Petroleum Institute wrote that

“Wages were 50 cents a day. There was no vacation pay, no sick leave, no disability compensation. The workers lived in a shanty town called Kaghazabad, or Paper City, without running water or electricity, … In winter the earth flooded and became a flat, perspiring lake. The mud in town was knee-deep, and … when the rains subsided, clouds of nipping, small-winged flies rose from the stagnant water to fill the nostrils …. Summer was worse. … The heat was torrid … sticky and unrelenting — while the wind and sandstorms shipped off the desert hot as a blower. The dwellings of Kaghazabad, cobbled from rusted oil drums hammered flat, turned into sweltering ovens. … In every crevice hung the foul, sulfurous stench of burning oil ….”

In March 1951, the Iranian Parliament voted to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, Mohammed Mossadegh was elected shortly therafter on his reputation as a widely respected statesman and champion of nationalization. Mossadegh oversaw the nationalization of the industry and the return of Iranian oil profits to the Iranian people. Britain was angered by this, and the eviction of its embassy and officials in October 1952. Britain approached the Eisenhower administration with exaggerated claims of Mossadegh and Iran’s communist sentiments. They warned that the country was on the verge of falling into Soviet hands. The CIA and MI6 agreed to stage a military coup under the codename “Operation Ajax.”

Operation Ajax, spearheaded by CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt (Grandson of Franklin Roosevelt) and approved by the Shah sought to remove Mossadegh from power. On August 15th the Shah, under the direction of the CIA, issued a royal decree dismissing Mossaddegh as prime minister. However, Mossadegh had received warning of the plot and issued a warrent for the arrest of his replacement, General Faslollah Zahedi. The news of the attempted coup caused Mossadegh supporters to fill the streets in protest in Tehran. The Shah, fearing backlash, fled from Iran to Italy.

After the first failed attempt, the CIA hired infiltrators posing as Mossadegh supporters to incite a “communist revolution.” Soon the violent riot had spread throughout southern Tehran. A second group of paid infiltrators, posing as Shah supporters, organized crowds of Iranians to march against the violent communists. By the end of the day the communists and the communist infiltrators had been beaten back by the Iranian crowds and the army, under Zahedi’s authority. The army then used the riots as en excuse to storm government buildings and arrest Mossadegh’s officials. To prevent further bloodshed, Mossadegh turned himself into the army, refusing a last attempt to organize his supporters.

The Shah returned to Iran and assumed rule of Iran until 1979. Under his rule the oil reserves of Iran continued to serve British and American interests. Mohammad Mossadegh was sentenced to death for treason, but had his sentence commuted by the Shah to house arrest. He remained under house arrest until his death in 1967.